The Wall Analogy
I've been thinking about an analogy for superstitious belief lately that seems to work quite well. I'm sure it has been used before in various forms, but I'll write down my version here for posterity, and for my own benefit of being forced to articulate it properly:
Superstitious and religious beliefs are like walls we put up to defend ourselves and provide security from the unknown. Imagine you're in a comfortable place and you look out into the distance to see a scary looking desolate landscape of sharp peaks and precarious drops. We can think of such a landscape in the distance as representing these unknown entities. When we look out there it scares us, the sense of uncertainty looms heavy on us.
So we erect walls - walls of superstitious beliefs and myths to protect us from having to deal with all the uncertainty and fear. An example of such a wall is the general idea that a god is responsible for unknown events - e.g. "I can't explain the beauty of that rainbow, or the destructiveness of that storm, therefore God did it." Providing a global and final explanation in this way is akin to erecting a wall between the individual and the issue so that the individual doesn't have to be affected by the anxiety aroused by the uncertainty and fear the issue brings.
This analogy is backed up in part by a study that shows that when people think of randomness they are more likely to have stronger beliefs in the supernatural/God. That is, unless they can attribute the arousal and anxiety caused by thoughts of randomness to a pill which some participants were able to do.
The analogy can also be extended to introduce the role of science, used here in its purest sense to mean a rational and effective way of finding things out about the world. Science works in two ways: to slowly chip away at these walls of superstition, and also to paint in vivid colour and shine bright light on the distant landscape so as to not make it so bleak, dismal and uncertain. Science enhances and extends our vision of the landscape while breaking down and making superfluous the walls of superstition. Sure, the very far distance is still foggy and uncertain, although the shroud retreats by the day.
Excellent Analysis of the so-called New Atheist movement
Russell Blackford, writing for The Philosopher's Magazine, has an excellent piece on the so-called New Atheist movement. While there is nothing essentially new about this recent rise of atheistic words and speech, Russell analyses its roots and significance.
He clearly explains why such action is necessary today...
But the situation now looks very different, even in the supposedly enlightened nations of the West. For a start, a revived Christian philosophy is well entrenched within Anglo-American philosophy of religion. More importantly, perhaps, religious organisations and leaders continue to exert social power. All too often, they seek to control how we plan and run our lives, including choices about how we die. At various times, religious lobbies have opposed a vast range of beneficial, or at least essentially harmless, activities and innovations. Even now, one religion or another opposes abortion rights; most contraceptive technologies; stem-cell and therapeutic cloning research; physician-assisted suicide; and a wide range of sexual conduct involving consenting adults. We still see intense activism from the religious lobbies of all Western democracies, and even in relatively secular countries, such as the UK and Australia, governments pander blatantly to Christian moral concerns.
Russell goes on to outline other reasons for the need of writing and speech to challenge the truth claims and moral authority of religion, considers also the criticism of the movement, and has some sage advice for those involved. He summarises with:
There are now many people who do not believe in any God or gods, or in the truth of any religious dogmas involving supernatural entities and forces, and are prepared to say so in public. Many of them have interesting reasons for their views, and it’s valuable for all of them – for all of us – to speak up. It doesn’t even matter if we don’t all entirely agree in our thinking; in fact, the last thing we should want is the hardening of contemporary forthright atheism into a kind of quasi-religious sect with its own body of orthodox dogma. We should go on scrutinising religion from all angles, while discussing our own differences thoughtfully, carefully, and often.
A very well written piece in my humble opinion. I've been thinking a lot lately about the ethics of engaging in religious debate at various levels - from the individual to the society. What's the "right thing to do" and the issue of offending people versus stating your considered position/opinion. What issues to target, and where my hypocrisies lie. Ideas slowly solidifying...
Why we believe in Gods
If you've got an hour this is a great overview of the psychological and neuroscience perspectives on why humans believe in religion.
For a bit of a bio on Andy Thomson...
Dr. Thomson is a psychiatrist in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has a private practice of general psychiatry and forensic psychiatry as well as serving as a staff psychiatrist at the University of Virginia's Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy and the Counseling and Psychological Services of the University of Virginia Student Health Services. Born in Washington, D.C. he received his B.A. degree from Duke University and his M.D. from University of Virginia School of Medicine. Robert Wright's book The Moral Animal introduced him to the emerging discipline of evolutionary psychology. It is that new lens of evolutionary psychology that informs his recent work on a comprehensive psychological formulation of suicide terrorism. He is a board member of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
Christopher Hitchens on the UN’s Anti-Blasphemy Resolution
A good look at this potentially very scary new UN proposal to criminalize blasphemy - basically anti-religious speech.
Ex-Atheist
Below is a video I came across recently. Be careful, it's really, really bad:
So what is so wrong with this video? Well it all starts when this poor girl states "Once upon a time, billions of years ago...time and chance came together and magically created this entire universe..."
She then goes on to say that evolution is a "fairy tale for adults", apparently just a "story" which was "created by" Charles Darwin. She misrepresents Darwin further by saying he came up with his ideas without any scientific evidence or methods! She also radically misquotes from Origins and makes a mockery of his life time's work.
There's a whole lot of wrong here, and this is just in the first minute. Maybe it's a good point to stop and reflect on a few points...
- Saying that time and chance came together billions of years ago is a misleading statement, and evolutionary theory certainly doesn't involve any magic. She implies that it all happened at once - maybe she has some serious misconception of the big bang theory. She certainly is hiding any knowledge she might have of the very slow nature of evolutionary change over time - especially the theories on early cell development.
- The whole fairy tale for adults thing is a turnaround of a statement commonly directed at religions, which made me think this was a parody at the start!
- To say Darwin created the idea of evolution is again misleading. Evolution by natural selection and by genetic drift occurs all around us in the world today. Darwin helped formalise the theory of evolution by natural selection. Like most significant steps in science, other scientists were thinking along the same lines at the time of Darwin and scientists before had laid the ground work allowing Darwin to reach his conclusions.
- One only has to read the first chapter of On the Origin of Species to realise that Darwin was incredibly cautious about gathering evidence and applying it in a scientifically appropriate way.
But of course, no point going into detail here...this is obviously the dramatic and ear-catching opening to her speech/argument. She's clearly more focused on projecting and winning the audience with hype than truth or knowledge.
On the other hand, this opening and the rest of the speech is dangerous. Dangerous because it implants these blatantly false notions into susceptible young minds.
She obviously hasn't given any serious thought to a lot of what she is saying. It seems to be to be a collection of popular anti-atheist and anti-evolution writings stitched together. This isn't necessarily a "bad thing" in terms of talking about a view, and in this case, it makes sense when one thinks about another motive for this speech: to promote P4CM...
The focus of her organisation, Passion for Christ Movement, is focused on youth. Judging by their website one could easily get the idea they're all about selling tshirts and being hip.
Their latest shirt, the Ex-Masturbator, is testament to this. Along with their other shirts, this one is pushing the risqué/edgy angle as much as any theological angle. Make a stand, be different, belong to something.
Is this a common method of operating for youth-oriented churches? The only way in 2009 to get the kids involved? It begs the question if the majority of members are in it for the hype and the sense of belonging, or the actual message and the ideas. Actually, wait, hasn't that been the story with all religions over the years?
Young people are also more prone to lapping up anti-establishment ideas, e.g. anti-science ideas. An essential part of growing up is critically analysing or dismissing the existing ideas and paving ones own road. However this church is giving poor youth a faulty compass to work with with.
Later on in the video she pulls out the latest and greatest anti-science idea of recent years: intelligent design. All the usual popular arguments for ID are present. No major surprises.
The worst thing she comes out with is comparing a single cell to New York City. She goes to town on someone's probably offhand remark that a cell is more complex than NYC - dramatically describing how complex NYC is on the way, like the analogy is actually valid and can be taken further...subways!
As expected her conclusion is that NYC is massive and complex and functions and hence can not have been created by random chance. Therefore, cells as well can not be created by chance (her view of evolutionary processes) but must have been designed by god! Some points are needed here:
- First off, comparing a single cell to a city is not a valid analogy. Any conclusions drawn from this do not follow. A city is a complex man made entity only really defined in sociological terms. A cell is a distinct biological entity.
- Parts of the evolutionary process, such as genetic drift and mutations, are relatively governed by chance. Others, such as natural selection are not: species are selected by their ability to reproduce, which often involves being the fittest for the environment. This is not a random process.
- She is also making the "change must have purpose" mistake. There is no hidden or greater purpose behind the evolutionary changes in an organism - simply adaptation to the environment and survival of the reproductive fittest. These are obviously completely context dependent. NYC on the other hand is designed and planned by humans with purposes in mind.
- NYC didn't just spring up over night in a perfectly functioning state. It is the process of years and years of ongoing human labour and problem solving.
She then goes into the irreducible complexity argument. Sigh. I'll pass you on to the excellent article by Steven Novella on breaking down the arguments of ID.
So all in all a real shocker. I hope she isn't indicative of any sizeable chunk of modern day US youth! Maybe it's just a Texas problem?
The Atheist Bus Campaign
I remember hearing about this campaign a while ago and thinking it was a cool idea to put a different message out there - even if just for the fun and semi-confrontational nature of it. But today I came across the website again through their financial donation website and was quite surprised to see just how much money they have raised. Of course the question is, what the hell are they going to do with all this money?
Their original aim was to raise £5,500 to get some atheist advertising on the side of buses in London: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” However now, after a slow start and with the support of super-atheist Dawkins and associated media buzz, they're up to £102,887.93. A serious amount of money for an organisation that has arguably no serious purpose or goals.
Initially I thought by now they must have some other plans, some other initiatives to handle the money. I was searching their website for evidence of connections with charities or maybe even supporting other groups or organisations that are fighting religious dogma/issues such as teaching creationism in school science classes. I could find none of this.
I hope they do come up with some clever ideas to use the money that will directly benefit society. I also hope they don't continue too far down this negative advertising campaign. There seems to be many more productive things to do to draw attention to religion-related issues and raise the status of critical thinking over belief.